page_title: Smoot
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Smoot / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Plaque commemorating the measuring in October 1958 of Harvard Bridge using the height of MIT student Oliver Smoot as a unit of measurement, the smoot.
context_page_description: The smoot is a nonstandard, humorous unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity prank. It is named after Oliver R. Smoot, a fraternity pledge to Lambda Chi Alpha, who in October 1958 lay down repeatedly on the Harvard Bridge so that his fraternity brothers could use his height to measure the length of the bridge.
context_section_description: Oliver Smoot was selected because he was the pledge deemed shortest and "most scientifically named." To implement his use as a unit of measure, Smoot repeatedly lay down on the bridge, let his companions mark his new position in chalk or paint, and then got up again. Eventually, he got tired from all this exercise and was carried thereafter by the fraternity brothers to each new position.
  Oliver Smoot graduated from MIT with the class of 1962, became a lawyer, and later became chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI, 2001–02) and then, president of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO, 2003–04). He is the cousin of Nobel Prize winner George Smoot.
  Public knowledge and interest in the story began when Holiday investigated the marks on the bridge years later, and published an interview with Smoot. The prank's fiftieth anniversary was commemorated on October 4, 2008 as Smoot Celebration Day at MIT, which Smoot attended.
  In 2011, "smoot" was one of the 10,000 new words added to the fifth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary.
  A 2016 April Fools' Day article by the MIT Alumni Association announced that MIT would recalibrate the smoot to 65.7500 inches and the ear to 2.48031 inches, and bridge would thus be 372 smoots give or take 11 ears. On May 7 of that year, Oliver Smoot served as Grand Marshal of the alumni parade across the bridge, celebrating the 100th anniversary of MIT's move from Boston to Cambridge.
caption: Harvard Bridge plaque on the history of the Smoot
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A1300", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2017:08:12 14:01:00", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Tag 0x1001": "4608", "Image Tag 0x1002": "3456", "Image ExifOffset": "2322", "Image SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity and Recommended Exposure Index", "Image XPTitle": "[32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, ... ]", "Image XPSubject": "[32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, ... ]", "Image CameraOwnerName": "", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:08:12 14:01:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:08:12 14:01:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "245/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "85/16", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "85/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "20339/1000", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4608", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3456", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8982", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "2304000/121", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1728000/91", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4204"}